A Good Doctor Appointment (Could it Be?)

Okay, so I am apparently not ready to let go of this blog quite yet. I wrote this post in my new blog, but realized before I hit 'publish' that I don't want to get too technical in that blog - I need it to be a place of healing, and cold, hard medical facts are not what I would call healing. Because I know I have followers here who may want to know about hyper-coiling, I will post this information here instead.

One note before you read on: I cover this in detail in my new blog, but I recently had a 10-week miscarriage. Yeah, I know. Our rainbow baby didn't make it. We're devastated. But...we are staying strong. We are going to try again. This is not the end.

It's not something I thought I would ever be able to say again, but there it is in the title, so it must be true. A GOOD doctor appointment!

Today was our Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) specialist appointment. It was scheduled at our post-birth follow-up around 8 months ago, so we have been waiting a LONG time for this. I really did my homework with Haven's cause of death, so I was confident in how I felt a future pregnancy should be managed. I knew that there was very little research out there regarding hyper-coiling of the umbilical cord (also called hyper-spiraling or torsion), and I was concerned that, due to the lack of research, a future pregnancy might be treated as "low risk."

It turns out that my apprehension was unfounded. The specialist was compassionate, but very to the point and knowledgeable. I am going to share the details here, in case another mama comes looking for this kind of information someday and it can be helpful. Or, if you want to know about it just 'cause, you are welcome to read on too!

Haven

• We were surprised to find out that, not only was Haven's cord abnormal, it looks like her placenta had also been abnormal. Excess growth of blood vessels in the placenta indicated that not enough oxygen had been getting through, so it was trying to overcompensate. This may have caused Haven to be hyperactive, which may have caused the hyper-coiling. This is a little speculative because there is very little study on the subject, but it would explain a whole lot. They can't tell us why the placenta wasn't getting enough oxygen in the first place. However, they feel this was likely an isolated case.

• She also mentioned that there were "fibrous kinks" in the cord, which wasn't really explained before. I am thinking these probably came from the last few times Haven switched sides in my belly. I had a bad feeling about the last turn she made, though I couldn't explain it. Now I think I had some kind of intuition that something was wrong (why can't intuition scream instead of whisper?)

• In my bloodwork before delivery, they discovered that my Protein S levels were low. This has to do with how your blood clots. The specialist feels that it is probably just a normal variation, but I will receive further testing in a few weeks. There seems to be a correlation in a lot of these cases between clotting issues and coiling, so I am eager to have this testing done (it may not be cause and effect, but two factors working together in a negative way).

Recent Miscarriage

• This is felt to be completely unrelated to what happened with Haven (as we already guessed).

• We may decide to use baby asparin leading up to conception and after the first trimester next time. There are thought to be benefits in prevention of various placental issues with its use.

Next Pregnancy

• Like the OB said, there is no reason we can't try again as soon as we feel ready. We will likely wait until I can be tested for the clotting issue in case the result is positive (it takes a month for results to come back).

• The specialist and the pathologist felt that, due to me not having any underlying risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, thrombophilia, etc.) the risk of recurrence was <1%. Now, with the statistical unlikelihood of what happened to Haven, I take all numbers with a truckload of salt, thankyouverymuch, but I am going to try and live in the >99%.

• Like with my recent pregnancy, I will begin seeing my OB as soon as I get a positive test.

• Between 10-12 weeks, I'll have another MFM appointment to ensure all is developing okay.

• They will do an 8-10 week ultrasound to date the pregnancy and assess for viability, then one at 18-20 for the anatomy scan, where they will do extra imaging to assess the blood flow from me to the baby, so they can see if anything looks abnormal. Assuming all is okay, I will start having biweekly scans at 28 weeks, then weekly scans at 34 weeks until delivery.

• I will be induced at 39 weeks unless there are factors that indicate we should deliver sooner (or if I am an anxious and emotional basket case and tests indicate the baby is okay and ready). We'll do an amniocentesis to make sure baby's lungs are okay before proceeding.

• Hopefully, we will finally get our "take-home baby." I'm daring to dream.

Now

Physically, I am feeling pretty good, though my hormones are bringing a surge of anxiety as they drop. However, my hormone levels seem to be dropping in a healthy way (hcg was only 130 on Monday!) Our OB will follow us until the numbers reach zero.

I spoke to our OB today when I called for my blood results, and she asked how I was doing. I kind of brushed it off, but she really wanted to know. She said "I am reaching through the phone to give you a hug! I want to see you with a big, beautiful belly!" I smiled as if she could see me and said, "I really want to see me that way too. I hope it happens." It is nice to know that we have such a supportive doctor.

That's it. Consider yourself updated. ;)

Marked

I mentioned in the last entry that we have been waiting for Haven's headstone to be completed and installed (since May!). Well, a few days ago, we drove to the cemetery and there it was! Gone was the gray marker, and there was her beautiful stone. We had it inscribed with a flower and a little bird, along with "Haven Melody, beloved daughter of Brandi and Danny," then her date and the verse Matthew 10:29-31 (we chose this passage because it is about how God notices and loves all of us, even the smallest and seemingly insignificant).

Though it was hard to stand there and look at my baby girl's headstone, it was comforting to know that she was finally laid to rest in the way we wanted. It really is so unnatural to bury your child. Most people never have to experience it picking out a casket or funeral flowers or headstone for someone you expected to outlive you.

But now she is marked. She was here, and that stone will show it for generations to come. Maybe someday I will visit it with her brother or sister in tow.

As for me...

I still have dark days, when the flashbacks are bad, or the heavy weight on my chest will not lift, but things have been getting better gradually. The medication chased away the darkest thoughts almost immediately, and for that I am grateful. I am gradually weaning again now, and we have been trying this month. This time, I am really off the grid with trying to conceive. Just letting nature take its course.

Something that I have talked about on my other blog a bit is how I am learning to take better care of myself. Since I lost Haven, a part of me wanted to hurt myself by not eating well (or at all at one point). I think I had a lot of self-hatred in the early months, and as time has gone by, I have just made unhealthy choices in an effort to quiet the pain. But I know now that Haven would never want that for me. I am feeding peace and health and joy into my life again.

What a long, long road this is.

Life, Again

Life is happening. I don't know when it started creeping in or when things started to feel normal again, but here I am. I truly couldn't see my way through to this even two months ago. A part of me didn't believe the other loss moms who told me that I would eventually feel like this again. Somehow, I am finding my way down this murky path and I am hoping again. I am doing well at work, I am having fun with friends and with Danny, and life is mostly good. Of course Haven is on my mind constantly, and I still have dark days and moments where I feel like my heart is going to burst out of my chest, but I am finding that I am stronger, and that I am bouncing back in a way that I just couldn't before now.

As I have noticed no real reaction to stage 1 of weaning from my antidepressants (other than an increase in anxiety), we decided to start trying again this month. I can't even explain to you how different it is this time around. I hope this does not sound ungrateful and that it does not hurt anyone for me to say this, but I am profoundly grateful that I didn't become pregnant a few months ago when we were trying; I was nowhere near ready, and I think the fear that my anxiety and depression and insomnia would be detrimental to the baby would have probably made all three of those things so much worse. This time around, I feel relaxed and excited. Yeah, I also have MANY fears, but I think those will now forever be a part of the process for us. So wish us luck!

This time around, there are no OPK's, no constant web searches, and no hourly symptom-spotting. And there will be no early testing either. I was entirely consumed the few months that we tried, and I can't imagine that helped things. This time around, I am focusing on being healthy and rested and happy. When it happens, it happens (though I selfishly would love a May or June baby!)

6 Months and Counting: An Update.

I can't even believe that it has been six months since The Worst Day. Well, technically, today was the middle of the three worst days. I was in the middle of my long induction, hopped up on morphine, and my thoughts and emotions were scattered.

I thought I was okay yesterday, which was six months since the day we first heard the terrible news. I was at work doing my thing when it just hit me. Thankfully, my boss is very supportive and didn't question it when I asked if I could have the next day off. She sent me home right then, in fact. I am so grateful.

Six months.

My depression has ebbed, though the past two weeks have been hard. I supervise summer camps as a part of my job, and this particular camp was full of little girls. A friend and a coworker had babies on the same day. Six months happened yesterday.

I have been sleeping most nights, which is a true blessing. The four months of not sleeping is what really sent me spiraling, I believe. Being back to work has lifted my mood and reminded me that there is still life outside the walls of my home. That I am good at things, and useful, and that someday I will have joy again.

I held a newborn baby yesterday for the first time since I held Haven. It was so hard, and my heart was heavy all evening afterward, but I think it was a good thing. He was just a beautiful little guy, sleeping so deeply as Danny and I passed him back and forth. His mom had a placental abruption and had to have an emergency induction. Though the situation was so different than what we experienced, I could tell that it had shaken them, made them think of us, made them so grateful for a good outcome when it could have been so different.

On that note, I am weaning from my antidepressants and hope to start trying again this month or next. I am so grateful now that I did not get pregnant when we were trying a few months ago. I was not anywhere near ready, and I was half out of my mind with grief and mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion. Now I feel like I can start this again with a fresh head, with a new strength.

And I am strong. It has taken me all of this time to realize that people were right when they said that I was strong as I put one foot in front of the other in the days after Haven was born. I was strong when we buried her. When I sunk to the bottom of the pit. When I crawled back out. When I faced the world again. When I learned how to smile again.

Joy comes from weird places, I find. Instagram, for instance. I didn't know what it was for months, until my boss explained (I might be the oldest 29-year-old ever). And now I am hooked. It actually brings me a lot of joy to take pictures and publish them. Cooking has been another joy. I love cooking, but when I was depressed I just couldn't. Crafts bring me joy. I have been making tutus and painting picture frames with friends, and it is lovely. Exercising. Well, I am working on that one, ha ha! I have also started another blog. Where this one has been a depository for my pain, the new blog will be a place where I track my redemption, my new beginning. I will post the link when it is ready to share, if you are interested in following. I will continue to need this space to put the pain, but I am now in a place where I need to sort out other feelings too.

Let's be clear: I have not arrived. I am not "all better." I never will be. I still cried on my way home yesterday thinking about my daughter's tiny body resting in my arms. No, I am not okay yet. But I will be. This is not where my story ends. It's just where it begins.

Down the Rabbit Hole and the Long Way Back to the Top

After Haven died, my mom warned me about slipping into the pit. She said, "it is a lot easier to keep from falling in than it is to climb back out again." My mom is a wise woman. And I am in the pit.

Since my last post, anxiety and depression completely took over my life and I broke one evening. It was a long time coming, and I am actually shocked now that it took so long for me to break. I slipped into a panic attack, where I sobbed and hyperventilated and felt like my heart would burst from my chest. Three months of heart palpitations, insomnia, muddy thoughts, and feelings of panic and depression all fell on me at once, with the weight of grief giving them the extra force they needed to crush me.  My husband received a text from me that caused him to worry, and when he called, I could barely form words. He rushed home and spent the day with me, cleaning the house, making supper, and holding me close. I don't think he realized until that day how badly I was doing.

Sometimes I look at myself almost like I am standing outside my body, and I think about how startlingly unhappy I am. Most days it is all I have been able to do to convince myself that I don't want to die, and that life is worth living. I don't intend to hurt myself, but I have had little will to live. It is like the joy has been sucked out of my life...kind of like one of those airtight clothes storage bags. I feel shriveled and pointless and other a lot of the time. But even though it has been a truly black time, I can still see from my low vantage point that this is not the bottom. I am afraid of the real bottom.

I returned to work this week. It has been a mixed experience. People's reactions are not always what I would expect, but I will say that everyone has been respectful. I feel entirely like a self conscious outsider, but I think that will ease in time as I learn to be among the living again. A glimmer of hope seeped in this week. For the first time, I have felt kind of useful and even sharp. I even laughed for real a few times as I sat in familiar surroundings and engaged in the banter. When I get home, though, the worries crowded my mind again.

Experiencing this prolonged period of anxiety has really opened my eyes to how it has been stealing from me for years. It has negatively affected and even destroyed some of my relationships. It contributes to my low self esteem and self worth. It steals joy by leeching worry into my thoughts until they spin and push me off course. It steals my sleep too, and it has since I was a child.

My doctor prescribed me antidepressants and sleep pills to help even me out. I am hopeful that they will do just that. Honestly, I regret not taking them during my last major depression. Insomnia really does take things from bad to worse. Of course, this medication means that we have to stop trying to conceive for awhile. I was really upset by that at first, but I am at peace with it now. Almost grateful, really, for a reason to not try. I don't think I was ready. So if, when this fall rolls around, I am doing better, I will ask the doctor to wean me off of these drugs, and we will start over again. My doctor said, "I think you owe yourself the pleasure of enjoying your next pregnancy." I think she is right. It's going to be so hard when the time comes, but I know I can't make it harder on myself by rushing into it.

Today, I am feeling almost positive. I decided today that this devastation and this crash are not going to kill me. I am too pissed off about my experience to let it beat me. I realized today that I have been letting this situation turn me into a victim, but no more. I am going to get my life back. If that means a new job, a new haircut, or new friends, I am going to do whatever it takes to get there. If it means risks, I'll take them. At the same time, I care so much less about the piddly things now. Perspective is an incredible gift, and I am not going to waste it.

I ran into this quote today, and I'll close with it. It made me think about how I have always put off doing the things I want to do, and how I have let life happen to me instead of taking charge. If losing Haven did nothing else, it made me realize how short life is and how nothing is guaranteed. So why wait?

"It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're 'ready.' I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as 'ready.' There is only now." - Hugh Laurie

The Real World Approaches

In Canada, you would normally receive a full, paid year off from work (up to 55% of your normal earnings) if your baby is born alive and well. You still receive the pregnancy/maternity leave portion of your Employment Insurance when you deliver a stillborn child due to the physical recovery and time for grieving. That means 15 paid weeks, and two unpaid weeks. Your employer must give you your job back, or an equivalent job with equivalent compensation. Well, I am about a month away from the end of my pregnancy leave, and I am starting to think about reintegration into The Real World. I have been in a safe bubble of sorts; I've been able to choose the people I want to be around, I have been able to focus on physical recovery and grieving, and I have been able to start each day at my own pace. That will change soon, and I am afraid.

I am afraid of strangers' reactions, since I have such a public job. The more I read forum posts and pieces of people's stories, the more I realize that there are a LOT of people out there who don't understand stillbirth and don't ascribe personhood to stillborn babies. Therefore, they don't think a parent is justified in mourning as though their baby breathed on the outside, or in talking about them the same way as they would any other child they bore. It's ridiculous, frankly. There are babies born much earlier than the point where Haven died, and if they were to spend even a few hours breathing on the outside, even with assistance, a lot of people would think of those babies more as people than they would my daughter, because she never breathed on the outside. I am afraid of meeting these people because I am afraid I'll either lose my mind and yell and them, or that I will be dumbstruck, and they will take my silence as agreement or some sort of proof that they are right.

I am afraid that I won't be able to keep up with things anymore. My job requires me to be "on" all the time, and to remember things. To keep things running smoothly. An administration job is not the kind where you can just shut off your mind. I was always sharp, remembered the little things, did things without being asked or reminded. And now, here I am. I still have "mommy brain" from all the hormones (I've heard this might never go away), my grief is horribly distracting, my focus on trying to conceive (TTC) is distracting, my thoughts about how my husband is doing are distracting...there really isn't a lot of room left for sharp thinking. I hope that I am able to flip a switch and just turn the focus onto my job once I'm back, but I'm nervous.

I am afraid that, if I can't conceive before I get back to work, the exhaustion of full-time work will make it more difficult. I'm afraid that if I can't time conception right, I'll end up having to work next year during the most busy and stressful time at work (April and May) and put my baby at risk. I'm already afraid that if I DO conceive this cycle or next, that even those few months at work will be dangerous for my baby due to my stress and anxiety. Basically, I'm afraid of stress.

I am afraid that going back to work will make all of this seem more real somehow. Like it never happened. I should have been returning in February of 2015 after an exhausting and joyful year of nursing my daughter and watching her grow. Now I am returning early, empty-handed and exposed.

I am afraid that people will think that going back to work means I'm okay.

Sigh. I'm just afraid.

TTC Adventures Continue: Are We There Yet?

Still waiting to ovulate and driving myself bonkers with this TTC (trying to conceive) hoopla. I'm on Day 19 and signs indicate I'll be ovulating soon. I (barely) avoided buying a thermometer and ovulation test strips today, but I did buy some pregnancy tests in faith that I'll have reason to use one soon. We have never "tried" before; Haven was a flukey (but very welcome) surprise, but we always prevented in one way or another before that. We're only in cycle one and I'm already so antsy. I have a whole new respect and sympathy for those who have been up and down this road for months and years.

My quirky mind likes to think that the little troops are waiting around at a gents-only, spermy expat bar (called, say, The Tube), for the egg to make her grand stage appearance. Maybe they're having a pint and a cigar in there, ribbing each other in friendly competition, exchanging strategies. Y'know, sperm conversation starters.

"I'm gonna get 'er this time!"

"No - I am!"

"There she is! CHARRRGE!"

It's a good thing we have a sense of humour about this, considering everything. It is still an emotional thing to be thinking about another pregnancy so soon, but I feel good about the fact that we're in this place.

Good luck, boys! May the best gent win!




If you want to be blown away by the crazy science of conception, check out this video. I am continually in awe of how our bodies work.

Baby-dancing, Month #1

Those in the online forum world will get a chuckle out of the title. Almost three months out, we have decided to head down the "trying to conceive (TTC)" road. Aaand, I am obsessed already. I know it's not fair, but when we conceived Haven, she was a total surprise after the one and only time we ever "baby-danced" unprotected around ovulation. But in reading so many forum and articles online, I know it's pretty unlikely that we will have the same luck so close after a full term delivery. Even though my ovulation is already late this cycle, I've been reading into every little ache and twinge and imagining I'm pregnant. I wish I could say I'm being cool about the whole thing, but I know I'll be crushed if my period comes in a few weeks.

It is emotional to be heading in this direction. On the one hand, I am totally excited and ready, but on the other, my fears and worries cover me like a heavy blanket. What if I am infertile now? What if it takes a long time to become pregnant? What if we're trying too early? What if I miscarry, or worse, lose another baby late-term? To be honest, my mind can't believe that I am capable of bringing a living baby into this world. It feels impossible. I am sad, because I know that my innocence regarding pregnancy is gone and can never come back. I know another pregnancy will be so bittersweet. But here we are. I am eager, despite it all.

I know I can never replace my beautiful daughter, but I do hope that I can make her a little brother or sister. I hope that we can bring home a baby, and find healing in that. I miss my baby so much, but I know this is the path I need to be on. Focusing on it has been a saving grace in this wasteland of grief.

One of the only things I have complete confidence in is my relationship with my wonderful husband. I know that, no matter what happens, he will support me and be there by my side. I hope, more than almost anything, that I can make him a dad to a baby we can take home. Nothing could bring me more joy.